Adafruit’s Becky Stern encourages techies to make their own wearables

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Wear the Wild Things

Not long ago, wearable tech typically meant nothing more than a calculator watch. Today it’s possible to cover every inch of your body in a fitness-tracking, text-messaging device of some kind.

But wearable tech doesn’t have to mean impersonal, mass-manufactured electronics.

Becky Stern is director of wearable electronics for the electronics-hacking ecommerce site Adafruit. She’s also a major evangelist in the growing DIY-wearables scene, countering typically glossy tech with punk rock flair.

“My work in wearables started long before the first Fitbit, Stern said. “It doesn’t aim to be mass-produced, but rather radically customized through the interpretation of instructions I publish. Wearables are so personal that I think it’s heavy­handed to suppose that one [product] will work the same way for everyone.”